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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23131657">Olivia</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikeWritesThings/pseuds/MikeWritesThings'>MikeWritesThings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Apex Legends (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Diary/Journal, Fluff, Humor, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Touch-Starved Crypto | Park Tae Joon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:22:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,180</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23131657</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikeWritesThings/pseuds/MikeWritesThings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s so obvious,” Bangalore said with a roll of her eyes. “It isn’t fooling anyone.”</p><p>“Who’s Olivia?” Octane asked.</p><p>Bangalore looked like she wanted to throttle him.</p><p>(or, Crypto has been keeping a diary, and in it details his extremely fucking obvious crush on Octavio Silva.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bangalore | Anita Williams &amp; Mirage | Elliott Witt, Crypto | Park Tae Joon/Octane | Octavio Silva</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>141</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Olivia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>crypto is ocassionally referred to as hyeon kim in parts that aren't his POV (first name hyeon, last name kim in case anybody is confused) because that is the canon name he uses in the games. otherwise, he is referred to as 'crypto' or 'taejoon' . some characters also get referred to differently depending on who the pov character i.e. to octane she is ajay but to crypto she is lifeline , so sorry if that sort of thing gets on anyone's nerves LOL</p><p>also there is a very minor reference to slight self-harm: specifically, picking at fingers/biting nails but this is just a small warning in case that triggers anyone :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>So Taejoon had a diary.</p><p>He wouldn’t ever<em> call </em> it that–Mila had made fun of him enough when they were kids that he stopped calling it a diary, and instead started referring to it as a log. But it <em> was </em> basically just a diary.</p><p>He got so caught up in the lies he spun, so trapped within the fabrications he created, that it was enough to drive one insane. How much of it was faked for the cameras and how much of it was faked even in private–not even he could tell the difference anymore, and the Games expected you to have two different personalities, so Taejoon needed to have <em> three </em>in order to survive. His true personality, Taejoon Park, with all his anxiety and paranoia and doubts; his ‘private’ personality, Hyeon Kim, stoic and yet sharp-tongued; and Crypto, his ‘onscreen’ personality, boastful of his own intellect and all-knowing.</p><p><em> Everything </em> was fabricated. He was only his true self in occasional messages to Mystik, and even then, those messages were coded and written like he was a completely different person. It was starting to drive him insane, how he felt like a shell of a person, a bug caught up in his own web of lies, and so he started keeping a log again.</p><p>It was still somewhat coded, but not in the way he did with Mystik to change the meaning of it entirely. It was only coded to protect his privacy and even his dignity, but other than that, it was Taejoon’s real, authentic personality–he couldn’t handle keeping his true self confined to letters for Mystik, so his log was where he could have unfiltered thoughts, just feel like a fucking <em> person </em> for once istead of a puppet on strings, dancing in whichever way was convenient at the time.</p><p>He didn’t write sensitive information; just his thoughts at the time, his anxieties and wants and the fleeting moments of happiness he managed to experience every now and then. He complained about Elliott, detailed pleasant smalltalk he had with Makoa, wondered about Wraith and what he could do to dig up her past.</p><p>But most embarrassingly, most egregiously, he wrote about his extremely fucking obvious crush on Octavio Silva.</p><p>He had at least made an attempt to hide it: he wrote his name as Olivia instead and wrote about him like he was a girl, so that at first glance it would seem like a random person that nobody else knew, but once you got deeper, the details jumped out more.</p><p>
  <em> I found out Olivia likes BTS...I kind of want to tell her I like them too, but that’s embarrassing... </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I saw this keychain online, and it reminded me of Olivia, because she likes bunnies...would it be weird to get it for her?... </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Olivia convinced me to let her ride my drone. I’m such a fucking idiot. I let her do it. It’s broken now. </em>
</p><p>Maybe he should have made more of an effort to disguise it, considering that only one person was batshit enough to do things like that, but Taejoon digressed; this was his own personal log where he could put his real thoughts out there in the world, ones that he didn’t want to be heard or read by anyone, but thoughts that needed to exist outside of his head so he could know they were <em> real. </em> Not like the lies he made up for the cameras, or the person he pretended to be around the others.</p><p>He was careful with it–he tried not to leave it lying around, and if he could, kept it on his person. He didn’t know how he would react if the other Legends found it, but chances were, it wouldn’t end pretty.</p><p>Taejoon finished jotting down an entry in Korean, explicitly detailing just all the things he wished he could do with Octavio. Not necessarily sexual things–sure, Octavio was really fucking hot, and he would like to do those sorts of things with him, but a lot of it was simple stuff. Hand-holding. Movie-watching. <em> Dates. </em></p><p>He’d never dated before, and once he was on the run, never had a chance to, but now that he was somewhat settled, hiding in plain sight, a strong want for contact had taken root in the pit of his stomach, and the person he desired most was Octavio.</p><p>Pretty and carefree, simple enough that he didn’t need to worry about too many secrets the other might be hiding, but wild enough to not be a plain boring person to know. The kind of person he knew Mila would like and Mystik would disapprove of, so of course, he cared for Octavio the most.</p><p>They shared many interests (even if he wouldn’t admit some) and Octavio was pretty touchy-feely with everyone, so he satisfied Taejoon’s occasional cravings for human contact with how much he lacked the concept of ‘personal space’.</p><p>Tossing the log inside it's safe space, he stretched his arms above his head and logged onto his computer, booting up a video game and waiting for it to load. He wasn’t going to play right now–he was just setting up so that when Octavio came back from a fansign and inevitably announced that he was bored, they could play together.</p><p>God, he had it bad.</p>
<hr/><p>In Elliott’s defense, you shouldn’t leave your diary lying around if you didn’t want it to get read.</p><p>He had accidentally stepped on it on his way to the communal kitchen. It wasn’t the first time he had stepped on some random object, either–they had experienced a bad bout of turbulence last night while they were sleeping, and a lot of their stuff got scattered throughout the ship. He had found one of his bobbleheads stuck beneath the couch, the paint chipped where it had been scraping across the metal floor. He had also found at least four of Octavio’s stim syringes, which he didn’t seem that pressed about, probably because he had a fuckton stashed all over his room where Ajay couldn’t find them.</p><p>Anyways, back to the diary.</p><p>He had picked it up, flipping it around in his hands as he tried to figure out what it was. Couldn’t be one of Nox’s scientific books, it was way too small, and definitely wasn’t a regular book, because the cover was leather-bound. He then noticed small words written on the back, printed in gold, and squinted at them. They came into clearer focus, and he realized that they were characters–Korean.</p><p>
  <em> Ohoho...jackpot. </em>
</p><p>“What’s that?” Anita’s voice carried over, and he looked up to see her approaching, brow furrowed. It was too late to hide it–she had seen it already, and would most certainly try to confiscate it from him and return it to Crypto, being the fucking cop she was.</p><p>“Not sure yet.” He opened it halfway, glimpsing a mixture of English and Korean inside, trying to steal glimpses before it was taken. “Think it might be Kim’s diary.”</p><p>He was prepared for Anita to snatch it from him, but she surprised him by leaning forward, a smirk on her lips. “Oh?”</p><p>So Elliott and Anita, who both grew up with several brothers and were extremely nosy people as a result, flipped through the diary with matching expressions of devilish curiosity on their faces. They went through pages written nearly entirely in Korean, parsing through the English bits to get a glimpse at the true character of Crypto. There was nothing particularly scandalous, but enough to make fun of. Crypto likes BTS <em> and </em> owns a plethora of photocards? <em> Perfect </em>blackmail material.</p><p>“I <em> knew </em> he was the one who ate my leftovers,” Elliott mumbled to himself, licking his thumb to make turning the page easier. “I mean, I probably wasn’t going to eat them anyways because leftover salmon sucks, but still.”</p><p>“Who’s Olivia?” Anita asked with a grin, having noticed the name pop up several times while reading. Elliott had noticed too, but since she asked, started seeking out the name for more instances of it. It appeared pretty often in English bits–he couldn’t tell if he wrote about ‘Olivia’ too in Korean, but what he<em> could </em> read made it pretty clear that Crypto had a <em> crush </em> on her.</p><p>Hahahaha...this was too good...just wait ‘til Bloodhound got a hold of th-</p><p>Wait.</p><p>
  <em> ‘She looks particularly small without her legs. It’s cute.’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘It’s hard not to laugh at her jokes when we’re on the same team. I’m tired of having to pretend.’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘The stim addiction worries me, but I think I could handle it.’ </em>
</p><p>Anita snatched the book from his hands, squinting hard at the words written on the page.</p><p>“Um,” Elliott said, letting out a short puff of breath to blow his hair out of his face. “Are we both thinking the same thing?”</p><p>“It is,” she took a deep breath, “extremely fucking obvious.”</p><p>There was a pause. Nobody else was nearby, which was good, because neither were sure if they should share this revelation with the rest of the team. The answer was probably no, they shouldn’t out someone like that, but...</p><p>“I can’t imagine them fucking,” Elliott said bluntly. He wouldn’t normally say it like that–he kept his comments PG-13 and professional, very classy and very Mirage. Around Anita, though, that filter went somewhere else, discarded somewhere else along with his fake persona.</p><p>“Silva literally likes him back,” Anita responded in that certain know-it-all tone of voice she occasionally got. “He’s always trying to get his attention. You’d have to be blind not to see it, but I shouldn’t be surprised <em> you </em> didn’t notice.”</p><p>“What’s that supposed to mean?!”</p><p>“You’re denser than a brick, Witt.”</p><p>“Yeah? Well y-your, uh, <em> head </em> looks like a brick. And I’m plenty smart, thank you very much.”</p><p>“Just like you’re smart enough to notice Bloodhound flirting with you?”</p><p>Elliott paused, eyes going wide. “Bloodhound’s flirting with me?”</p><p>Anita whacked him on the side of his head with Crypto’s diary. “No.”</p><p>“If you two are done with your sibling’s quarrel,” Nox’s voice hissed, and they both turned to see the large man standing there, trying to get past. “I would like to eat lunch.”</p><p>Because Nox was in the room, the two left, trying to find somewhere more secluded to discuss the diary and its contents, but nowhere else on the compound was it empty. Anita flipped through, reading more and more as Elliott babbled on about how unexpected it was that Crypto, stoic and sharp-tongued and smug Crypto, would like Octavio, who was pure energy in the form of a human man with self-destructive tendencies and a partying attitude.</p><p>It was pretty obvious who Crypto was talking about, so obvious that she wondered why he had even bothered trying. She tried to skip over the extremely personal parts, more interested in the parts about ‘Olivia’, but she did catch an occasional snippet she felt guilty about reading; some of his fears and a lingering sense of paranoia that plagued every page.</p><p>They finally wandered to a stop in a corner of the common area, far away from where Natalie was tinkering with an electric fence and explaining things to an interested Wraith. </p><p>“We should give it back,” Anita said, snapping the book shut. “It’s none of our business.”</p><p>“Yeah, but if they like each other, shouldn’t we tell them?” Elliott asked, eyebrows quirking up. “It’d be pretty cool.”</p><p>There he went again, trying to play matchmaker–Anita had witnessed him trying to set up Natalie and Wraith together just last week, hinting that a new French cafe was opening up in Solace City and <em> hey, Wraith, didn’t you tell me earlier you’ve always wanted to try French food? Wink. </em></p><p>He was the romantic type, but one of these days he was going to interfere somewhere he shouldn’t.</p><p>“No. Give it back, Elliott,” Anita said, shoving the book into his hands. She didn’t want to be the one to return it because she didn’t want to admit she had read it...no, she’d leave that burden on Elliott and let him experience Crypto’s wrath. </p><p>“I guess,” he sighed, before opening it again. “You think he writes about me in here?”</p><p>“Elliott.”</p><p>“Okay, okay, fine!”</p>
<hr/><p>Octavio was bored.</p><p>Again.</p><p>Always! He was always bored. But he was especially bored right now.</p><p>Ajay had abandoned him to go shopping with Pathfinder today. He had been planning on playing a prank on her for his channel, and had even already prepared the matchsticks and baby powder, but just as he had begun setting up she had called out a goodbye to everyone before leaving. Pranking Makoa wasn’t nearly as fun–he just laughed at Octavio, said “Good one, brotha!” before slapping him on the back so hard that the joint on his left leg popped loose.</p><p>So then he had repaired his leg, and ate lunch by himself (well, Caustic was in the room, but he wasn’t fun to mess with either). Now, he was pacing circles in the hallway, trying to think up something.</p><p>He hadn’t seen Elliott, Anita, or Revenant all day. He liked watching movies with Elliott and going to the gym with Anita, and Revenant was hilarious in a terrifying way, but he didn’t feel like seeking any of them out.  Elliott and Anita were his friends, but told him ‘no’ way too often when it came to doing stuff, leaving him with limited options on who else to bother.</p><p>Maybe he should bother Crypto...</p><p>Yeah, that sounded good.</p><p>Octavio liked bothering Crypto. He didn’t actually get mad, so in a way he was similar to Makoa, but...more fun? Somehow? He was a good listener–he let Octavio go on about stunts he’d pulled, or whatever his obscure interest of the month was, and didn’t even call him out when he was obviously lying or exaggerating. Octavio clearly remembered telling him that Navi had died in a rocket and Crypto had responded, “What kind?”</p><p>It had been such an unexpected question, such a wildly different response from twelve years ago when he had instantly been sent to the counselor's office, that he had stared at Crypto for a good couple of seconds, trying to formulate an answer. He eventually exploded out “One with fucking <em> laser beams</em>” and Crypto had smiled at him, which.</p><p>Huh.</p><p>Made him feel good.</p><p>Nobody else listened to him like Crypto did. Some of them were better talkers than listeners: Anita talked too much in a know-it-all way and Elliot talked too much in a nervous way while everyone else either told him to shut up or just tuned him out. Even Natalie, who he was on relatively good terms with, didn’t like listening to any of his stories about his stunts and got confused over the more exaggerated ones, like asking how it was possible for a rabbit to operate a rocket. It was no fun.</p><p>So Octavio liked Crypto. It was simple, really. He got past the other’s barriers, wormed his way past that stupid “I know everything” bullshit and found himself a comfortable niche beneath his fake persona and had someone he could annoy without actually annoying and it wasn’t annoying to<em> not </em>be annoying.</p><p>Or something like that.</p><p>He was just thinking about asking if Crypto wanted to play video games when he crashed right into Elliott, and they both fell to the floor. They had both been so caught up in their thoughts that they hadn’t noticed each other, Octavio thinking about Crypto and Elliott having his nose buried in a book. That book currently sat in Octavio’s lap, flipped open onto a page written entirely in Korean, with little doodles in the margins of the pages.</p><p>“Uh,” Elliott said, staring at him with wide eyes. “Don’t read that.”</p><p>But Octavio had already picked it up, grinning. All thoughts of finding Crypto had fled from his mind, his attention span short and currently enraptured by whatever the fuck this book was that clearly belonged to the man he had just been looking for.</p><p><em> Oh my fucking god this is a diary. </em> A diary! Holy shit! Octavio flipped through the pages noisily, briefly reminded of when he discovered Ajay’s diary back in middle school. She had ripped it from his hands before he could read beyond the boring stuff, but Crypto was nowhere in sight, so he could read it all he liked. Maybe then the other would <em> finally </em> get annoyed by him, spice things up a little.</p><p>“Elliott,” Anita’s voice said, and Octavio barely glanced up to see that Elliott had gotten to his feet, scratching the back of his neck nervously. “Did you give him the fucking book?”</p><p>Octavio scrambled to his feet too, stepping away from them both in case they tried to get the book back, but they were too caught up in their argument to notice him.</p><p>“It was an accident!”</p><p>“Sure. You were just trying to play matchmaker again.”</p><p>“Okay, yes, but also no, because I didn’t do it on purpose! I was gonna give it back.”</p><p>“Then why does <em> Silva have it?</em>”</p><p>Octavio blocked out their arguing, leafing through the pages. God, he knew it, he knew Crypto liked BTS and didn’t want to admit it, haha, and that he had a hiding spot for all his snacks and was the one who hacked Revenant’s voice box to make it squeak after the simulacrum had purposely shoved him into the lava in Fissure.</p><p>“Because I dropped it! We bumped into each other!”</p><p>“I told you to give it back ten minutes ago. There’s no reason you should still have it.”</p><p>“I was...uh...”</p><p>Octavio’s good cheer faded a little as he kept reading. He was a fast reader despite his dyslexia–not a very <em> comprehensive </em>reader, but a fast one for sure. Flipping through the pages, one name jumped out at him over and over again: Olivia.</p><p>Who the fuck was Olivia.</p><p>“Maybe he won’t figure it out,” Elliott suggested weakly, having forgotten they were both arguing right in front of the person they were talking about.</p><p>“He will. It’s so obvious.” Anita crossed her arms and gave a roll of her eyes, having given up on chewing the other out. “Even someone like Silva could figure it out once he puts that noggin of his up to it.”</p><p>“Who’s Olivia?” Octavio asked, glancing up from the book.</p><p>Anita looked like she wanted to throttle him.</p><p>“Who else could it be, Octavio?” She asked, almost dumbfounded by his response. “Who else?”</p><p>He was confused.</p><p>“I don’t know. That’s why I’m askin’, amiga.”</p><p>‘Cuz it would kind of fucking suck if he had started to grow attached to Crypto only for him to have a girlfriend. It wouldn’t have been the first time that had happened, but it would be a blow nonetheless.</p><p>Anita took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. Elliott slowly edged out of sight, looking glad that Octavio’s confusion had distracted her long enough to let him escape.</p><p>“Read the damn diary,” she said, defeated, and Octavio kept going. Kept going, kept reading about how this ‘Olivia’ person was cute and how much Crypto liked her and he was too afraid to ask her out. An ugly feeling of jealousy bloomed in his chest, a very specific kind of personal jealousy when he saw the kinds of positive relationships other people had. Elliott’s relationship with his mom, Makoa’s relationship with his dad, and now Crypto’s relationship with Olivia...<em>fuck, </em> he wanted all of that.</p><p>This was yet another thing he couldn’t have.</p><p>“Am I supposed to know?” He asked, tapping his foot impatiently, itching to hunt Crypto down and demand who Olivia was.</p><p>“Silva,” Anita stressed slowly, tapping the page. “Who do you know that has eaten an entire ghost pepper mixed with pop rocks?”</p><p>Octavio frowned. “You mean besides me?”</p><p>Anita stared at him, unblinking. “And who do you know that’s been allowed to ride Crypto’s drone?”</p><p>“He wouldn’t,” Octavio said petulantly, in denial that Crypto would ever allow someone that wasn’t him to touch that drone. “He only lets me do it.”</p><p>Anita raised her eyes to the sky, as if silently pleading for a higher power to intervene, before snatching the book from his hands and flipping to a certain page. She handed it back to him and asked roughly, “And who else has blown off their legs with a grenade, <em> Octavio?</em>”</p><p>Octavio stared at the words on the page–the English ones–and blinked. The letters seemed to be floating off the paper, swimming before his vision, making his head spin. Finally, he looked up at the woman, eyes wide, and asked, “<em>I’m </em> Olivia?”</p>
<hr/><p>Taejoon was panicking.</p><p>He couldn’t find his log anywhere, having checked his belongings to make sure nothing had slid around the dropship during the bouts of turbulence he had slept through last night. Several of his things had wound up across the common area, mostly socks and pens and small things, but he realized his log had gone missing too when he realized he had accidentally left the small compartment beneath his cot unlocked.</p><p>Stupid, stupid, he was so fucking stupid and on the verge of biting his nails off. He had already chewed off his thumbnail, bitten it so badly his finger had bled and he had wrapped one of Ajay’s cutesy Band-Aids around it. If it got too bad he would put more around his other fingers to discourage himself from picking and biting at them, like Mila used to make him do, but for now he was getting by on tugging at his hair, which was much harder to hurt himself with, but satisfying to do nonetheless.</p><p>He had checked everywhere. Other Legends’ rooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen, underneath couches and chairs, looking for anywhere it might have slid. He even turned his own little room upside down in case he had placed it elsewhere and just forgotten about it, but alas, found nothing.</p><p>He should have never kept it in the first place–screw the fact that he didn’t feel like a real human being half the time, forget that he was trapped alone with his thoughts, the log had been a weakness, something that could possibly be exploited, and he was foolish for writing in it so honestly. Regardless of whether it was written mostly in Korean or not, it could be run through a translator and many of his secrets could be revealed.</p><p>Who would be the absolute worst person to find it? Anita, perhaps, who would turn it in if she glimpsed inside and noticed an inconsistency with the ‘Hyeon Kim’ she knew. Pathfinder, because he could easily understand and read all languages and could decipher the log. God, what if the fucking <em> Commissioner </em> found it? </p><p><em> You’re being too paranoid, </em> a voice in his head said. Mila’s voice. </p><p><em> It’s your fault for keeping it anyways, </em> Mystik’s voice argued back. She was the one who taught him to be paranoid in the first place. <em> If anything happens, it falls on you. </em></p><p>Maybe he should start running. Now. Every time he boarded the dropship, he managed to secure a jump kit in case he needed a quick escape. If his security had been compromised, then–</p><p>“Yo.”</p><p>Taejoon whirled around to face the intruder, hackles raised. He was on the edge, hands itching for a weapon, but the moment he saw who it was he relaxed. Wide hazel eyes, beauty marks and an abundance of piercings: Octavio.</p><p>It was hard to be on edge around the other. His own feelings aside, Octavio was naturally boisterous and carefree, and it was infectious. Well, that was how it normally was, anyways. His eyes travelled down, appreciating the slim waist and abs on display, but freezing at the book in the other’s hands.</p><p>“Uh,” Octavio said, forcing his eyes to flit back up to his face. “This is yours?”</p><p>He phrased it like a question, almost like he was giving Taejoon the chance to deny it, but he held it out nonetheless, waiting for him to take it.</p><p>Taejoon swallowed, trying to stifle the anxious feeling working its way up his throat. “Did you read it?”</p><p>Octavio was strange when it came to honesty: oftentimes very blunt and straightforward with what he thought, resulting in others getting angry at him, but also oftentimes dishonest if it benefited him or made him sound cooler. But Taejoon could tell when Octavio was lying now, even if he never called him out on it. It would be hypocritical of him, the biggest liar of them all.</p><p>Thankfully, Octavio made it easy on him this time.</p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>Taejoon snatched it away from the other, dropping all pretenses. His heart was pounding as he flipped through it to see if any pages had been ripped out, for evidence or something-or-other. “How much?”</p><p>Octavio grinned up at him, rocking back and forth on his metal heels. “Enough to know you’ve got a huge fucking crush on me.”</p><p>On the one hand, Taejoon was relieved that was all he got out of it. </p><p>On the other hand, he wanted to fucking die.</p><p>He adjusted the collar of his jacket, snapping it up so it could hide his darkening face as he turned his back on the other man and started locking up the log where it would never fucking fall out ever again. God this was traumatizing.</p><p>“Come on now, amigo, you can’t pretend! I know it’s me! Well, I had help from Elliott and Anita, but–”</p><p>“You <em> what?</em>”</p><p>Oh no. Oh no no no no. </p><p>“Yeah, they basically had to spell it out for me. If it makes you feel better, I don’t think they read much of it. Just enough to also know that you have a huge crush on me.”</p><p>“Please stop talking,” Taejoon mumbled, mortified. This was somehow worse than everyone else figuring out the fact that he was a wanted murderer. That would be much preferred over the inevitable teasing.</p><p>“Why?” Octavio whined, and he felt a hand on his waist. “Come onnnn, this is good. Now I can ask you out on a date!”</p><p>Taejoon slammed his draw shut, numb. He felt like ice had just been dumped down the back of his shirt at those words, and it took a moment for his throat to unstick so he could say, “What.”</p><p>The hand on his back disappeared, and reappeared on his chin, tilting his face to the side so he was forced to meet Octavio’s eyes.</p><p>“I like you, dumbass,” he said, and god his smile was too fucking pretty for his own good. He had dimples, but not in the place dimples typically were, at the side of the mouth, but rather just above the corners, and they only showed when he smiled in a certain way. He was doing that smile now, making his dimples show and Taejoon’s heart flutter</p><p>“You really shouldn’t,” was Taejoon’s honest response.</p><p>“Too bad! You’re exciting. I like exciting things.”</p><p>Taejoon snorted, and just like that, the stiffness melted off his shoulders. The other acting like his typical self was enough to make him feel like he didn’t need to constantly be in fight or flight mode, even if this whole situation was fucking embarrassing. “How am I exciting?”</p><p>“Mysterious, hot, probably on the run from the government ‘cuz of the hacker thing, I could go on.”</p><p>Taejoon winced a little. <em> If only you knew. </em></p><p>“So we should totally go on a date,” Octavio continued, and slipped his hand into Taejoon’s. It felt. Really fucking nice. Being on the run for so many years and growing up without parents, he was touch-starved, and even something as small as holding hands with the other was enough to make a strange warmth bloom in his chest. He had written about this recently too, how he wanted to touch Octavio casually like this, like a normal human being. It was better than he could have ever expected.</p><p>“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Taejoon said anyway, despite all of that, because he was a self-destructive person who liked pushing others out.</p><p>“I’m pretty good at handling bad ideas,” responded Octavio, because he was an idiot, but like, Taejoon’s idiot. “Also, I knew you were fucking hiding shit from me. I knew you were pretending to hate BTS. Why? So I couldn’t force you to dance?”</p><p>“No, it’s just embarrassing.” He was secretly glad that Octavio was stubborn, and any stubbornness he had on the subject of Not Dating was being matched with Octavio’s own want to date.</p><p>“Well, we’re gonna dance right now. Let’s go, I’m putting on <em> Fire.</em>”</p><p>Taejoon glanced down at the other’s metal legs, fighting back a scoff. “You can<em> not </em> dance to <em> Fire.</em>”</p><p>“Hey, if anything breaks, Ajay will fix me!”</p><p>“I will not,” Lifeline said as she passed by, face scrunched up in disgust. Her arms were loaded with shopping bags, Pathfinder trailing behind her, equally as loaded. “If you two are datin’ now, great. Crypto can fix you up so I don’t have to.”</p><p>“Oh, they’re dating now?” Gibraltar’s voice carried over, sounding excited. “About time!”</p><p>Taejoon wanted to die. “I hate this.”</p><p>“Maybe you shouldn’t have been so obvious about liking me,” Octavio teased.</p><p>“You didn’t even figure it out on your own,” Taejoon pointed out, unwilling to admit that his feelings had been noticeable to everyone. “Mirage and Bangalore had to tell you.”</p><p>“Shut up.”</p>
<hr/><p>“We did a good thing,” Elliott said, watching the two flirt with his arms crossed. “This is a good thing, right? Like, this isn’t gonna backfire.”</p><p>“If it does, I’m blaming it on you,” Anita said absentmindedly, working on her sudoku puzzle.</p><p>Elliott watched Crypto sit down in his chair, rolling his eyes at something Octavio said, but still allowing him to touch him all over–tugging at the collar of his jacket, putting his hands on his shoulders, ruffling his hair. The almost obsessive need to put his hands on everything revealing itself to Taejoon, who didn’t seem to mind that much.</p><p>“Nah, I think it’s fine.”</p><p>Heavy EDM music started blaring from Octavio’s speakers in the room next door as soon as he said that. Crypto threw his head back and laughed when Octavio tried to dance, but accidentally toppled over and hit his head against one of Elliott’s display shelves, causing a domino effect that knocked over all of his things.</p><p>“Nevermind. This is the worst. This is the actual worst.”</p><p>“And it’s your fault,” Anita said, throwing her pencil down, and acting like she hadn’t been the one to tell Octavio who<em> ‘Olivia’ </em> was. “I hope you’re happy.”</p><p>Crypto pulled Octavio back to his feet, feigning annoyance. Octavio’s loud voice carried over, teasing the other for something. God, they had been together for a fucking<em> hour </em>and they were already being disgusting.</p><p>But it was nice.</p><p>And it was about fucking time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this is based off my friend <a href="https://twitter.com/miragesucks/status/1235759350540570629?s=20">max's tweet</a> which i thought was HILARIOUS but this ended up being slightly more emo than anticipated ? anyways i know i should be working on other things but i am Mega Depressed my dudes and hardly anybody else writes cryptane so its up to me to provide all the content.</p><p>heres my <a href="https://seerofmike.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/tsodmike">twitter</a> ! thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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